


Blood and Mercy

by theorytale



Series: The Saga of Hug Fortress [3]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Multi, complete self-indulgence, let the subtext begin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-02
Updated: 2012-06-02
Packaged: 2017-11-06 15:02:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/420195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theorytale/pseuds/theorytale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony and Bruce are fine, responsible, upstanding members of the scientific community.</p>
<p>Loki still believes that the best defense is a good offense, in more ways than one. Tony tries to teach him about mercy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood and Mercy

Tony was at a clean energy convention in San Francisco, heckling the keynote speaker while Bruce sat next to him and pretended not to know him. Personally, Tony was of the opinion that Bruce should live a little. If Spelman was going to show up with all these outdated ideas, heckling wasn't just expected, it was practically their _duty_.

Plus, he kind of wanted to see what it would take to get kicked out of the convention. Everyone knew about the New York skyscraper powered solely by arc reactor technology; they all knew that Tony Stark was pretty much the _face_ of clean energy right now. So far all he'd managed to get were some dirty looks and a 'Mister Stark, there will be time for questions at the end of the session.'

Next to him, Bruce buried his face in his hands and groaned. "Why didn't you just accept when they offered _you_ the keynote?"

"Nah, this is way more fun," Tony said with a grin.

"You're like a child. Seriously, you are inches away from just throwing spitballs."

"Ooh, spitballs," Tony said, just to see the look of despair on Bruce's face.

The woman in front - who had been glaring at Tony off and on for a half hour now - turned around again, this time to frown at Bruce. "Excuse me - are you with him?"

"Ma'am," Bruce said solemnly, "I've never seen him before in my life."

"That hurts me." Tony slung an arm around Bruce's shoulder and beamed at the woman. "We're lovers. Four years now. We're very happy together. The sex is fantastic."

"Tony!" Bruce hissed, pushing him off. Just when Tony was thinking in disappointment that he would have to disown Bruce and get a new partner in crime, Bruce turned the puppy dog eyes on him and said, "You promised we'd keep it a secret. You know if Natasha finds out she'll divorce me and I'll have nothing!"

Tony nearly fell off his chair laughing. The woman from the row ahead made a frustrated noise and turned her back on them again. Spelman was still droning on at the front of the auditorium, wildly inaccurate and trying valiantly to ignore them.

Earlier in the day they'd all got the spiel about turning off their cellphones. Tony had of course ignored it, so when his cellphone rang now, it rang loud and clear.

"Sorry everyone!" Tony called, half-rising from his seat to grin around the auditorium. He got nothing but hostile stares in return. "That's mine. I'll just, uh--"

The screen said Hawkeye. What the hell was Clint calling him for? Tony thumped Bruce on the shoulder and nodded towards the door. He put the phone to his ear and started towards the back of the room, taking it for granted that Bruce would follow. "What's up?"

"You and Banner are in San Francisco, right?"

Spelman said something snarky into the microphone about being sorry to see him go; Tony maturely resisted the urge to flip him off. "Yeah, for the next couple of days," he said into the phone. "You want me to bring the kids back a Golden Gate Bridge keychain?"

"Ooh, get some of that Ghiradelli chocolate. But, uh, first you might want to take care of the magic slap-fight happening over in Berkeley."

"Hold on." Tony went out into the foyer and held the door long enough for Bruce to get through. "Okay, did you say magic? No, we're not in California. We're in, uh, San Francisco, Lithuania. I can see how you'd get confused, the names are very--"

"Don't be such a baby," Clint said, sounding amused. "It's a few dorks in robes. Just show up, look shiny, and tell them to knock off the massive property damage."

"But I hate magic," Tony said, well aware that he was whining. He gestured to Bruce for pen and paper. "What if they turn me into a newt? Or a woman? Or a newt woman?"

"If they turn you into a woman, you can finally get the sweet, sweet loving from Banner that you've been longing for. Look, get over there before some muggles get hurt."

"That was a Harry Potter reference," Tony accused him. "Don't think I don't know these things. Okay, what's the damn address?"

He jotted down the details Clint gave him, promised to be _responsible_ (oh, how he hated that word), and hung up. Looking at Bruce, he sighed and waved the piece of paper. "Voldemort and Harry Potter are going at it across the Bay. If they turn me into a woman, Barton wants us to have genius babies together."

Bruce took that in stride, because he was a champ. "Do you need the Other Guy?"

Tony considered it. Honestly, he trusted the Hulk a lot more than Bruce did, but he knew Bruce hated changing. "Tell you what, you hang back from the action and stay ready. I'll only call you in if it looks like I can't handle it."

"That works for me," Bruce agreed.

It didn't take long to suit up and get to where the action was; honestly Tony wished it could have taken a little longer. Disappointingly, the situation didn't conveniently resolve itself before he and Bruce got there. SHIELD agents had set up a perimeter around the destruction, but weren't pushing forward. The half-melted SUV in front of one of their blockades was a pretty good indication why. It made for a good place to drop Bruce, at least.

"Four combatants," the woman in charge told him. "Three on one. The outnumbered guy is the one doing all the damage."

"Awesome," Tony said flatly. "Wish me luck." He closed his face-plate and had JARVIS dial Bruce up. "You hear me?"

"Loud and clear," Bruce told him. "Be careful."

Tony flew towards the explosions, trying to make out the wizards or sorcerers or whatever the hell they were. "Have you ever known me to be anything less than careful?"

"Is that a yes-no question or do you want an itemized list?"

"You wound me, Bruce." Two guys, not three, in dark robes shooting actual non-magical bullets across the street. Some crumpled bodies that suggested there had originally been more people in this fight. More names for his list of casualties.

He could see blasts of something blue-white streaking towards the guys with guns and flaring against some kind of magical shielding, but he couldn't see where they were coming from. There was smoke everywhere. "This is a mess, I can't see a damned thing. Jarvis, give me some thermal-- no, that's not any better."

He was going to have to get closer in and risk taking a couple of hits. He dropped down through the worst of the smoke, every muscle braced to take evasive action in a hurry. Now he could see the guy hurling the blue-white stuff, albeit obscured.

Through the suit's external speakers he called, "This is Iron Man. Stand down."

Almost immediately that same dark figure turned to aim a blast at him, and he jetted backwards out of its way. At least the robed guys didn't shoot at him; one ran forward, waving for his attention, and shouted something that Jarvis was kind enough to amplify.

"Don't let him take it!"

Oh, great, there was some mystic mumbo-jumbo device in play. In Tony's - admittedly limited - experience, magical doohickies were always bad. No one ever created, say, an artifact that dispensed unlimited Pepsi. It was all 'infinite power' this and 'indomitable will' that. Really, the only thing that would make this worse would be if--

If the smoke parted just like _that_ to reveal a flash of black leather and green cape. Oh, god, he really should have seen that coming.

He dodged another blue-white blast, or tried to; it clipped his shoulder and spun him into a nearby parked car. He grunted, prying himself out of the smashed windscreen. "You still listening, Bruce?"

"You're about to do something stupid, aren't you?"

"Absolutely not," Tony lied. He took a curving path through the smoke; it rapidly thinned out the closer he got, giving him a great view of Loki's expression when he tackled him to the ground. A stray bolt of magic flew past his helmet before Loki bucked and threw him off. Tony slammed on all his stabilizers at once and righted himself before he hit any walls.

The gunfire had stopped.

Loki had risen to his feet, some carved vase-looking thing tucked under his left arm and the other hand hurling another bolt of magic through the air. Tony managed to dodge this one. He popped his face-plate open to make eye-contact, trading a little armored safety so as not to set off Loki's not-being-looked-at buttons.

"Hey," he said brightly, and then his mind went horrifyingly, embarrassingly blank. "So, uh… you want to go get a beer?"

" _What?_ " Loki said, and actually stopped throwing magic around to stare at him incredulously. Tony wondered if they could keep Loki out of trouble solely by constantly confusing him.

He heard a sigh in his ear. "It's Loki, isn't it," Bruce said, not a question. "You're chatting up Loki right now."

Tony chose to ignore the implications of 'chatting up'. "You know, beer. Ale. You, me, nix on the death and destruction. Could be fun."

"You--" Loki stopped, a strange expression briefly crossing his face before settling into grim resolve. He raised his hand, telegraphing enough to give Tony time to dive sideways. Sloppy.

Tony shot back, and Loki curled protectively around the vase as he rolled - now that was interesting. Fragile? Dangerous?

Loki looked about to shoot again, but stopped short, eyes flickering to the side. Tony turned his head to follow. There was, of course, nothing there. When he looked back, Loki was gone.

Tony silently counted to ten, very calmly, and decided right then that he was never going to admit to anyone that he'd just fallen for the oldest trick in the book.

"Tony?" Bruce sounded worried. "Are you still there? I'm coming in--"

"Nah, forget it." Tony lowered his face-plate again and started trudging across the road to go talk to their pals in the robes. "Remember when he used to hang around and fight instead of pulling this Houdini vanishing act stuff? You get all hyped up for a big smack-down and then... nada. It's just rude."

"Is this going to turn into a blue-balls metaphor?"

"Unlike the rest of you perverts, I am not obsessed with Loki sexcapades, so no. Thanks for putting in the legwork for me, though; I appreciate it." He raised an armored arm and the two remaining robed guys obligingly trotted over to him. Now _these_ guys were nice and considerate. He approved.

"Did you stop him?" one of them asked urgently.

"Um… not… as such," Tony admitted. He thought about pointing out that they hadn't needed to stop shooting - it wouldn't be the first time the Iron Man armor had copped a few bullet dents in the name of friendly fire - but decided not to encourage them. "He was holding something, looked like a butt-ugly vase?"

"The Cup of Guerin," the other guy said gloomily. He pushed his hood back to reveal thinning hair and a face that looked like it belonged to a tax accountant playing D&D on the weekends. "No one should have known we had it. We were all bound by oath to protect it." He looked around at the bodies on the road and pressed his lips together.

Tony was pretty sure Loki had his own ways of finding things out. That wasn't really the issue right now. "What does it _do_?" he asked. Besides 'break the laws of physics', because that was just a gimme where magic was concerned.

"It amplifies certain kinds of magic," said the accountant. "By, um. By quite a lot."

The first guy clutched at Tony's arm, probably leaving greasy fingerprints on the armor. "You have to get it back. In the wrong hands--"

"I was really hoping you weren't going to say that." Tony sighed and gestured them down the road. "Come on. There are some nice agents you can tell all about it."

\--

He didn't exactly _expect_ Loki to show up at their hotel later, but he didn't think it was all that unlikely, either. To be on the safe side, he stayed away from the bar and civilians, and hung out in Bruce's suite instead. Bruce was maybe the one person in the world who didn't need to be afraid of Loki. Side benefit of moonlighting as an indestructible green orc.

The evening passed kind of slowly. Tony listed out the various artifacts Loki had stolen - the ones they knew about, anyway - and the two of them tried to brainstorm complicated schemes he could want them for. At the same time, Bruce was texting Clint - he'd picked up a throwaway pre-paid cell during the day and was sending anonymous cat facts because pissing Clint off was funny.

Tony paced back and forth as they tossed ideas around. He wasn't waiting. He absolutely wasn't waiting. He was just… restless. Perfectly normal.

They eventually had to admit that they'd given up on trying to figure out Loki's plans and had moved on to plotting how to take over the world themselves. At that point, it seemed like a good idea just to call it a night. Tony assumed Loki was biding his time. He headed back to his own suite, weighing up the pros and cons of calling up Pepper for phone sex (admittedly, they were mostly pros), and wandered into the bathroom to brush his teeth.

Naturally, that was when Loki appeared and shoved him face-first against the counter.

"Ow," Tony said, cheek pressed against the enamel surface. It was embarrassing how easily Loki could hold him down with just a hand grabbing the back of his neck. Carefully, making a show of it, he put both his hands on the countertop, palms flat. No threat. "Hi?"

"I will not be mocked," Loki hissed.

"You're going to have to be a little more specific, I don't-- wait, is this about the beer?" Tony squinted awkwardly, trying to make Loki out in his peripheral vision. "Because that was a genuine invitation. I mean, it didn't have to be beer, we could do cocktails again. …Am I bleeding? Do you have a knife in me right now?" There was definitely something running down his back. " _Wow_ , that's… that's sharp, I can't even feel it."

Loki snarled, "Cease your prattling," and there was a sharp flare of pain near the middle of Tony's back, right by the spine, like the knife had twisted. A thicker drop of blood spilled out.

"Okay," Tony said, mouth going dry, "now I can feel it."

He really ought to have taken over the country by now. Not to rule it, just to infiltrate everybody's systems, get Jarvis set up anywhere he might possibly go. Pretty hard to signal his AI with an emergency code when his AI wasn't here. Maybe keep a transmitter with him, satellite link, integrate it into a wristwatch or something.

"This joke has gone on long enough," Loki said. His voice was low and furious. "I will not be made a mockery for your entertainment."

Tony took a steadying breath; in through the nose, out through the mouth. His life probably depended on him saying the right thing in the next thirty seconds and nobody's life should _ever_ hang on him controlling what came out of his mouth, that was just a recipe for disaster.

He stayed flat, fighting the useless instinct to struggle. He wasn't sure how deep the knife was. He was still bleeding, he could feel that much, so it was more than a scratch. "And I told you, I'm not. Why is that so hard for you to believe?"

"Experience," Loki said bitterly.

Well, that… was probably true. Tony winced a little. "Yeah, well. Every dataset has outliers. You wanted to talk to me; why can't I want to talk to you?"

Loki made a disparaging noise. "Don't flatter yourself. Why would I want to talk to _you_?"

"Really?" Tony managed a grin, although his skin was still prickling with adrenaline and fear. "You expect me to believe that you had no idea there was an energy convention this week. You just picked this week, of all weeks, to come to San Francisco on your round-the-world robbery tour. You had _no idea_ I would be in town. Is that what you're telling me? That you were that sloppy?"

There was a long pause. Finally Tony felt the grip on the back of his neck relax, and the knife disappear. "I may have suspected," Loki admitted warily.

"That's what I thought." Tony straightened slowly, keeping his hands in plain sight on the countertop. "Now that we have the pleasantries out of the way, you mind telling me how deep you just cut me? Because all I can tell is there's blood rolling down my back, and I don't bring a first aid kit on business trips."

Loki gave a slight huff and pulled Tony's shirt out of his waistband, yanking it up to his armpits. It bared most of his back and Tony felt ridiculously exposed, even though objectively this was no more dangerous than a few seconds ago. "You might want to consider changing that policy," Loki told him, "given your tendency for insolence."

"Yeah, well, until now it's never been--" and Tony's voice failed because Loki was _touching him_ , fingertips on his bare skin, firm and sure. The hair lifted on the back of his neck, goosebumps despite the balmy weather. He could feel Loki's fingers drag across the wound, pushing a stinging warmth into it. It was intimate in all the wrong ways. Tony was shudderingly aware of his own body.

"There," Loki said, close behind him, sounding completely unaffected. Maybe a little impatient. "Your scratch is tended."

Tony met his eyes in the bathroom mirror without thinking. He regretted it immediately, flinching as he caught sight of his own reflection, wide-eyed and all too telling. Normally he'd play it off, make a joke about _kissing it better_ but he just couldn't. The words lodged in his throat.

This was just, nothing, it was just a moment of craziness because every-damn-body had been putting the idea into his head. He pushed out from in between the counter and Loki, putting some space between them. Space seemed like a really good idea.

"I need to change," he muttered. Wait, there was no point in that with blood still drying tacky on his skin. "No, I need to shower first. Well-- that can wait." He glanced back at Loki, who was watching him with hard-edged amusement.

Loki looked down at his bloodied fingers. He rubbed them together for a moment, then looked back up at Tony with a smirk. It was just enough warning for Tony to brace himself and then Loki was _licking the blood off his fingers_ , rat bastard, and Tony sucked in a short breath.

No, okay, no, he needed to get in control of himself, this was a disaster. He needed to be a challenge, needed Loki to find him interesting. Tony was pretty sure that if he fell short - if he proved boring or too easy to toy with - then Loki wouldn't hesitate to take him apart, first metaphorically and then quite literally.

Perhaps just as important as the danger of violent and sudden death was that… if he was _boring_ , then Loki wouldn't consider listening to him. That wouldn't do at all.

"So, a drink?" he asked, pasting on a bright smile. "I'll crack open the minibar, god knows I can afford it."

Loki made a small dismissive gesture with one hand. "I don't require refreshment."

No real surprise there; he figured Loki wouldn't be in any hurry to get drunk with him again. Tony flexed his back, testing, but it felt fine. He shrugged and made his way to the sofa in the largest part of the suite. "So, tell me, that thing you made off with today -" corpses on the road, dead and crumpled - "what's that for?"

"It's pretty," Loki deadpanned, following him. "I'm going to put it in my chambers and grow flowers in it."

"See, now I know you're lying, because that thing was ugly as sin." Tony leaned back in the sofa, not caring if the blood on his shirt left stains. He could buy them a new sofa. Hell, maybe he'd buy the hotel. "Was it really worth killing people for?"

Loki blinked, like he genuinely didn't understand the question.

"I mean, okay, you're devious," Tony tried to explain. "Wasn't there a way you could have got hold of it without getting in a fight with those guys?"

Loki bristled, facing shutting down into that cold, vicious anger. "I don't know what Thor's told you, but I'm not a _coward_ who shies away from battle."

"Whoa, whoa." Tony held up his hands, placating. Medieval space viking, right. "I think a sufficient proportion of this planet are terrified of you that nobody thinks you're a coward. I just--" What was the best way to phrase this? An appeal to pride? "Look, a truly great warrior can afford to be merciful, right? Do you guys _have_ mercy on Asgard, is that even a thing?"

Loki slouched into the corner of the sofa, regarding him coolly. "I was merciful. You distracted my final assailants, and I left instead of destroying them for their insolence."

Tony wondered how much truth there was in that. It was nice to think that maybe Loki really had spared the last two because of him. Probably he was just saying it to appease him. "Well, that's a start."

"I don't see what difference it makes," Loki said, and the worst part was he sounded absolutely sincere. "You all live such a short time anyway. What have they lost? But a handful of years."

Tony could handle this conversation if he pretended it was about math and not _people's lives_. "No, look, it's disproportionate. It's division, not subtraction. Fifty years is just a long weekend to you, but to us it's half a lifetime."

Loki's mouth twisted like he was thinking about it, but he still looked unconvinced. Or maybe like he just didn't care, which was unfortunately pretty likely.

Tony decided to go for the cheap shot. "I just think you should be able to steal something without turning it into a bloodbath. Unless, of course, you can't figure out how."

Loki's mouth quirked. "Do you really think that will work on me?"

"I was kind of hoping," Tony admitted.

Loki looked at him a moment longer, then smiled. There was something kind of terrifying about that smile. "Would you like to make a wager?"

Tony was pretty sure that was a terrible idea. In fact, he was pretty sure there was a whole _library_ of myths that boiled down to 'don't make wagers with the God of Lies'. But if there was a chance he could save some lives, how could he turn it down? "Sure," he said, rubbing his fingers against his thigh. "Sounds fun."

"So, you wager I can't complete my next theft without killing a human?"

What loopholes did that leave? Tony shook his head, lifting a finger. "Mutants count as humans. No killing, no lasting injury - physical or mental."

"Hmm." Did Loki's smile actually broaden? He was pleased Tony was adding conditions. Of course, it was a game to him. "I accept your terms. If I win?"

There wasn't really an 'if' about it; there was nothing to stop Loki from success. Unless he simply didn't want to.

"If you win…" Tony searched his mind. It was hard to think of something he could offer, something Loki would actually want. This was not going to be one of those horrible 'wagering someone's head' deals. "I make a mean daiquiri? Um. You don't exactly need money. What do you get the Asgardian terrorist who has everything?"

"I could use a cellphone," Loki said, and, _what_?

"A cellphone," Tony repeated, just to make sure he'd heard right. He turned it over and over in his mind but couldn't think of anything particularly nefarious that Loki would need a cellphone for - or at least, nothing he couldn't do with an off-the-shelf cell from a store.

Then again, maybe that was the point. That's what he'd do, if he was an evil mastermind; make a bet for something completely innocuous, and then slowly up the price each time. See how far he could get. Like boiling a frog.

"All right," he said. "You win, you get a custom-built Starkphone. Top of the line. If I win… you stay out of trouble for a month?" He wasn't really expecting Loki to accept that, but Loki nodded and put out a hand to shake on it. His grasp was firm and warm.

Maybe Loki would have done a clean run anyway, but Tony chose to believe that he'd saved some lives with this little bet. Sure, Loki probably had an ulterior motive and he wasn't looking forward to finding out what that was, but in the meantime he really wanted to feel like he was accomplishing something.

There was one more thing. None of this was going to matter if he couldn't get Loki to make peace with Thor, somehow. Too much of what Loki did was wound up in their brother issues. Tony glanced across the sofa at Loki and decided to try his luck. "Just for the record, Thor's never said you were a coward. He actually called you 'a clever and deadly fighter'."

Loki's face shut down and he folded his arms across his chest. " _Clever_ ," he repeated with distaste. "Yes, I know precisely what he means with that."

It was going to be slow going, obviously. Tony shrugged, trying to make it look casual, like it didn't really matter. "Well, I'm not a mind-reader, but it didn't sound like he meant it as a bad thing."

His cellphone buzzed. Loki inclined his head as if to say _answer it, then_. Tony sighed.

"Hold that thought," he said, and fished out his cell. It was a text from Bruce: _Either you smuggled jarvis in or talking to loki. Need backup? Safeword?_

_under control 4 now,_ he replied. He hadn't realized the walls were that thin. Good thing he hadn't brought Pepper along; Bruce probably wouldn't have appreciated that kind of noise. Or hey, maybe he would, keep things a little spicy. _safeword = me screaming like a little girl._

"And how is Doctor Jekyll?" Loki asked, with thinly veiled hostility. He wasn't even looking at the cellphone so god knew how he knew who it was.

"I'm the only one allowed to call him that," Tony said with a frown. "Bruce is just awesome, thank you for asking."

Loki gave a little eye-roll. "What is it with your predilection for befriending monsters?"

Loki was a real fan of that word, 'monster'. Tony gave him a long, considering look. Long enough that Loki shifted uncomfortably and then scowled.

"I don't believe in monsters," Tony said slowly.

Loki rolled his eyes again, with a dismissive snort.

"Everyone's got choices." Tony leaned back in his own corner of the sofa, mirroring Loki's posture. "A lot of people used to call me a monster. Hell, they were probably right. The only thing that makes it true is what you choose to do with it. It's never too late to make a different choice."

"What a lovely philosophy," Loki drawled, not quite making eye contact. "Do let me know how that works out for you when the green beast is beating you into the floor."

"Nah, the Hulk likes me because I stuck up for him." He kept his eyes on Loki, steady. "Everyone deserves someone to believe in them."

Loki flinched slightly. He got up and strode across the room, examining the instruction card by the television with his back to Tony.

He tried to look so tough, but he was brimming with desperation. Tony wondered how it had taken him so long to realize Loki was so fragile. Or maybe he'd just never cared enough to figure it out.

Without looking around, Loki said, "They will always turn on you. That's what monsters do."

Which was its own kind of truth, and not one that Tony was likely to forget in a hurry. He touched his arc reactor, felt the reassuring solidity of it, right where it should be. Paralyzed, helpless, Obie's hand wrenching it from his chest-- "That's what _everyone_ does," he said, a little darkly. "Everyone's capable of it. Most people hide it. Blindside you. That's why I like people who wear their monster on their skin. They let you know where you stand."

That… was probably more than he should have said.

"Besides," he added, hoping to redirect the conversation, "I like proving people wrong." That had to be something Loki could relate to, right?

Apparently Loki wasn't feeling kind enough to let it drop. He turned and walked back towards the sofa, that slow, prowling gait he sometimes used. Like a panther. "Is that why you seek out my company? Because I make no pretense that I won't kill you if it amuses me?"

Tony hunched down a little. He wasn't sure what the best answer was. He also wasn't sure if Loki could tell lies from truth. He really ought to ask Thor about that, about the extent of Loki's powers in general. "Because you're interesting. Stupid people are boring."

"That's true enough," Loki murmured. "And yet this realm is filled with them."

Tony lifted his chin in challenge. "Well, something here keeps you pretty interested, because you keep on coming back."

Loki quirked an eyebrow at him and sat back down, a little closer than before. "Surely you don't fear for Midgard. Why, Thor himself has placed it under his protection!" His voice dripped sarcasm.

Tony studied him for a moment, trying to figure out the deeper meaning behind that. "So this is all about breaking your brother's toys?"

Something that looked a lot like contempt flashed across Loki's face. It could be directed at Thor, but it _could_ be directed at Tony. Which would suggest he was missing something. " _He_ certainly believes so. Who am I to gainsay the future king of Asgard?"

Think, think. Why else would Loki come here? "The first time you came here had nothing to do with Thor, did it? It was just because the Tesseract was here."

"Hardly the first, but…" Loki made a gesture like he was sweeping that point aside. "What makes you think the Tesseract wasn't just a bonus?"

Evading the question. Tony narrowed his eyes a little. "Trade you a question, then."

"You already owe me one."

"So I'll owe you two." He waited for Loki to nod, then said, "Okay, if you had your alien army, and it was entirely your choice what world to invade, which would you choose?"

Loki looked at him quietly for a moment. "Jotunheim."

Not Earth. It _was_ the Tesseract.

Jotunheim sounded familiar. Tony flicked through notes in his mind, little snippets of information from SHIELD and from Thor. "That's… ice giants, right? That's the one you tried to blow up before you…"

"Fell," Loki supplied. His expression was guarded. "The home of the frost giants, yes."

Tony almost said something incredibly stupid like 'what have you got against frost giants?' He knew what Loki had against frost giants. Thor had given them the rough outline (repeatedly: whenever Clint made the mistake of calling Loki 'evil' and doomed them all to another hour-long lecture of 'my brother's adopted and it made him crazy').

Instead he said, carefully, "You do know that if you wipe them all out, it won't actually change anything, right?"

"Of course it will," Loki said, looking at him like _he_ was the crazy one.

Tony opened his mouth, then stopped, genuinely perplexed. "Okay, you're going to have to break that down for me."

Loki held up one hand. "Loki's a frost giant. Frost giants are barbaric, repulsive creatures." He held up the other. "Loki's a frost giant. Frost giants are… whatever Loki is."

"If you're the only one, you can't be defined by them," Tony murmured. He closed his eyes for a moment. It made a disturbing amount of sense, if you ignored the fact that it hinged on wiping out an entire race. "That's… really impressive, actually. To hell with therapy, you decided that the simplest, most effective solution to your self-esteem issues was to go straight to genocide. I mean, you don't do things by halves, do you?"

"Hardly genocide," Loki said, tone filled with disgust. " _Extermination_."

Like bugs, or vermin.

Good heavens, and _Loki was a frost giant_. Tony recoiled as something leapt into startling clarity in his mind. He'd probably already figured it out on some level but he hadn't stopped to put it into words. That Loki - for all his ego, narcissism, and superiority complex - thought of himself as something subhuman. It was a contradiction Tony was intimately familiar with, although not nearly so extreme.

He reached out and put a hand on Loki's shoulder, trying to anchor him with the touch. "You're not a monster," he said firmly, "although let it be noted I am not a giant fan of the killing sprees. You're not a beast, or a creature. You're--"

"I'm a _god_ ," Loki snarled, drawing himself up to his feet. He always sounded so defensive and angry when he said that. For someone who was supposedly the king of liars, he had an odd tendency to wear his emotions on his face. "And I do not need your pity. Have you forgotten who I am? I _lie_. How gullible you mortals are. How easy it is to prey on your useless sentiment."

"That was incredibly transparent," Tony told him. "Come on, are you even trying?"

Loki glared at him furiously, then the rage ebbed into something miserable and wounded. "How do you see-- Why _you_?" It was bitter and despairing and more than a little hateful, and Tony decided not to take it personally. Almost inaudibly, Loki said, "Why not Odin?" and oh, _that_ hurt.

It was the same thing Tony had asked himself a hundred thousand times. _Why, Dad, why? Why can't you look at me, why can't you see me? Why can't you just understand?_ It hurt and he wanted nothing more than to stop this conversation in its tracks.

"I, um." He swallowed, throat rough. "I know it's my turn to cry on you but I really just would rather skip that whole bonding experience, if it's all the same to you. Actually, I'm thinking it's minibar time. And the answer is: some people are really crappy parents."

He headed for the minibar without waiting for an answer, shade of Howard Stark burning in the back of his mind.

"Odin is a hero," Loki said from behind him, sounding defensive but also strangely flat. "And the greatest king Asgard has ever known. Anyone will tell you that."

Oh, yeah, raised his frost giant son to hate frost giants, the guy was a master tactician. Tony grabbed the bottle of liquor closest to the front of the little fridge and took a long swig. "Ugh, good god, that's gin, I hate straight gin. I didn't say anything about the guy's kingship, I said he was a lousy father, and if you're seriously going to try and argue that then I worry about your own-- no, that's not fair, I'm sorry, I didn't say that. Just, he screwed up. He screwed you up."

He frowned at the bottle of gin. Well, it was open now, may as well keep going. He took another long swig and made a face. Oily, that's why he didn't like gin, it always felt oily in his mouth. Like detergent.

Loki muttered brokenly, "Perhaps his one mistake was in taking me in the first place."

Oh, how Tony knew that feeling, knowing that his own father didn't care and having only one person to blame. "It's not your fault," he said roughly, not turning around. "Lots of other things, yes, but not that. Not him."

Loki was silent for several seconds, then he said in an unsteady voice, "I should go."

That wasn't a surprise, really; the conversation had gotten… touchy. If Tony had a nifty teleporting superpower, he would definitely use it to get out of awkward conversations. He cleared his throat, wiping at the corners of his eyes. "Right. Yeah. I'll, uh, I'll see you around."

His chest hurt. With his free hand he reached around under his shirt and rubbed at the dried blood on his back where it was flaking and itchy. Maybe Natasha and Pepper were right and he was over-identifying and not objective and all that other crap.

That didn't mean he was wrong.

He put the rest of the gin back in the mini-fridge and contemplated taking the bottle of Jack instead. Probably not worth it. He was suddenly really tired. Dealing with Loki seemed to have that effect on him.

There had to be a way to merge Asgardian morals with American morals with Loki's particular bag of cats and find a clear path through. His rough plan was to redirect and focus Loki's destructive urges, which in a lot of ways was the same thing he'd done for himself. Iron Man got to blow up a _lot_ of stuff.

Admittedly the plan could use… refinement.

Tony groaned and wandered through the empty suite, fishing out his cellphone. He sent Bruce a quick all clear then stripped off his shirt and dumped it in the trash. He wound up on the bed, tracing the shape of the arc reactor and staring blankly up at the ceiling, trying not to think about anything in particular.

Not Dad, not Obie. Not the way people lied with false smiles and fake kindness and were only out for what they could get. Not Loki licking blood off his fingers and smirking at him.

The door clicked as Bruce let himself in; they each had the other's spare keycard. Tony kept staring at the ceiling and waited, and Bruce came to settle beside him. It was a big bed, there was plenty of room.

"You know you're clinically insane, right?" Bruce said.

"Labels," Tony said dismissively. He let his hand rest over top of the reactor, covering its light. "When you're as rich as I am, it's not called 'insane'. It's called 'eccentric'."

"I stand corrected," Bruce said agreeably: "clinically eccentric."

Tony thought about telling Bruce about the no-kill bet, because that was a good thing, right? There was still time for it to blow up in his face, though, somehow. Better to wait; unhatched chickens and all that. Instead he said, "That time I got him drunk, do you know what he said? He said something about when he first met me, and I thought, right, because he threw me out a window. But it was before that, in Germany. I called him reindeer and then I - and I quote - 'dueled Thor for him'. Which was pretty much a draw but apparently since I'm a mortal he counts that as a win for me."

He turned his head to look directly at Bruce. "You don't think he seriously believes I won him off Thor, do you? I'm an only child. I'm quite happy being an only child. I don't need a crazy supervillain brother."

Bruce looked thoughtful, but all he said was, "I'd be worried if any of us could figure out what that guy was thinking."

"Yeah." Tony rolled his head back with a sigh, and closed his eyes, Bruce a comforting presence beside him. Bruce was his favorite human teddybear (something he'd freely admitted to Bruce on multiple occasions). "If I can't get through to him, he's going to commit genocide. --Not on Earth," he added hastily. It seemed like a relevant detail. "Well, crap, maybe Earth, too, I don't know."

There was a pause. Bruce said blandly, "So, no pressure, then."

Sometimes it sucked being a genius with a conscience. "Piece of cake," Tony agreed.

\--


End file.
